Jungle Family
by harryHEARTginny
Summary: A story about Tarzan and Jane, along with their son Jack. Watch the family as they make their own way in the jungle, possibly running into some trouble as well...
1. Chapter 1

Up in a tall tree along the African coast Tarzan and his wife, Jane, were sleeping peacefully in their bedroom. The sun was just making its way over the horizon in the eastern sky, and the couple was unaware of what was about to disturb their slumber. Without a sound their bedroom door was slowly opened, revealing the couple sound asleep, Tarzan with his arm wrapped protectively around Jane's waist. The intruder went stealthily around the bed, to the side where Tarzan lay, getting as close to Tarzan's ear as possible, the intruder took a deep breath and let out a loud elephant sound!

"Ah!" Tarzan and Jane both jumped at the sudden noise.

"Jack!" Tarzan turned over to see his son standing beside him with a big grin plastered on his face over his accomplishment. Tarzan groaned and looked out the window, seeing the son still low on the horizon, he groaned again. "Jack, couldn't you have waited for the sun to have fully risen before you woke us up?"

"Nope," Jack said with the same proud grin as before. "Come on Dad, let's go get some breakfast!"

Tarzan chuckled lightly at his son as he dashed out of the room, excited to start the day. Jack was ten years old and had enough energy to last three life times, though Tarzan didn't doubt that he had been the same at that age. Beside him Jane had given up on her brief attempt to regain sleep and rolled over so that she had herself propped up on Tarzan's chest. She stared at him for a moment before quickly leaning down and giving him a peck on the lips, when she pulled back she smiled again and asked, "Will he ever learn that sleep isn't a bad thing?"

Tarzan brushed away a stand piece of hair that had fallen in front of Jane's eyes, "If he starts getting us up earlier than this, I hope so."

There was a light thumping of feet before Jack arrived in the doorway once more, "Dad! Come on, hurry up, I'm hungry!"

"Alright, Alright, I'm coming!" Tarzan laughed at his son's eagerness. Jack, once again ran out of the room.

"You'd better get going, love," Jane said, giving her husband another peck before pushing him out of bed and sending him on his way. Tarzan grabbed his spear from the corner or the room and began to make his way out.

"We won't be long!" he called over his shoulder to Jane, who was slowly making her way out of bed.

Jane smiled as she watched Tarzan grab hold of a vine dangling beside the tree house and slide down it to meet their son on the ground. Tarzan had had proven to be a wonderful father, of course it had been a little hard for him at first, seeing as he only knew how baby gorillas were taken care of, but he had caught on quick. But Tarzan wasn't the only one who had needed to learn a few new things about how to raise a kid, well naturally they both did, but there were things that Jane had to consider that she never had had to back in England. It became very apparent early on that they would have to teach the little one how to live and survive in the jungle, and that was not something she would have been able to teach very well, so she left Tarzan to that. It had made her extremely nervous at first when Tarzan began to teach her little boy how to swing on vines alone and slide down tree branches, but she got used to it fairly quickly. Although she still can't say that she never worried when she saw little Jack swing from vine to vine, flipping and spinning through the air.

Walking over to the window, Jane looked down on her husband talking to her son. Jack looked exactly like his father with wavy brown, though shorter, reaching his chin as opposed to below his shoulders, deep set green eyes, he was also beginning to show the same strong, athletic build as Tarzan. The only real difference between the two, besides height and age, were their clothes, though Jane accepted, and admittedly kind of like the loincloth look on Tarzan, she did not want her son dressed in that. Instead Jack wore plain brown shorts that were easy for him to move around in.

In the jungle Tarzan and Jack had began their hunt for some good fruit for breakfast. Each of the pair with their spears tied to their backs. Tarzan had given Jack his first spear last month for the boys tenth birthday, since Tarzan himself had been around that age when he made his first spear.

"So Jack, what kind of fruit do you want for breakfast?' Tarzan asked as they swung from vine to vine.

Jack thought about it for a moment, "Mangos!"

Tarzan laughed, he should have known, mangos were Jack's favorite food. "Alright son, mangos it is!" With that he swung a sharp left to wear he knew the best mango trees were. Once there Tarzan landed onto a tree nearby the mangos and waited for Jack who arrived beside him a moment later.

"Alright Jack, do you remember what I told you?"

"Yeah, keep your elbow up, spear straight and at eye level, pull back slightly, and then toss forward with as much strength as possible, keeping your arm on a straight path, aiming for your target.

"You got it!" Tarzan said roughing up Jack's hair; he was slightly surprised that the boy had remembered all of that

"Dad!" Jack complained, trying to flatten his hair again. Tarzan never really understood why his son always did this, it is virtually impossible to keep your hair tidy while in the jungle. He, of course had never tried to do this himself, but her had head Jane complain about it enough to know.

"Now Jack," Tarzan started, getting down to his son's level. "When you are trying to spear more than one fruit at a time, you have to look for the right spot, try and find a place where there are a couple of fruit behind each other, that way you have more of a chance at getting them through the centre. Here, I'll show you." Grabbing his spear, Tarzan lifted it up and looked for a good spot, finding it, he focused and through the spear as hard as could, stabbing three mangos onto his spear and launching them into the trees trunk.

The shock of seeing this done had worn off a while ago for Jack, he had seen his father do this many times before through his younger years. But now, when Jack watched he studied closely at the technique that his dad was using. Grabbing hold of his own spear Jack lifted it above his shoulder and focused on everything that Tarzan had told him to do. He already knew most of it because for the past month Tarzan had been teaching him how to spear fruit, but back then it had always just been one at a time. Once Jack thought that he had everything in good alignment, he through the spear at his target. Out of the three mangos that Jack could have speared he got two, the second one though, was a little off center.

"Your aim was good," Tarzan explained, "but when you released you flicked your hand inward before the spear was completely out of reach, causing for it to change it course slightly. Tarzan always tried his best to explain what it was that Jack needed to improve in a way that wouldn't offend him, and so far he had been doing a good job of it.

"Okay Dad," Jack said brightly, grabbing a vine and swinging over to the mango tree to grab both of their spears. When he swung back he handed Tarzan his spear, they both pulled the fruit off of the end of their spears and placed them in the old flour sack they had brought along, and then set back on catching more fruit.

An hour later Tarzan and Jack returned to the tree house, Tarzan shouldering the flour sack, stuffed full with mangos and even a few pomegranates. Jane was sitting at her easel, working on a drawing of a flower that Jack had brought home for her the other day. She was just putting the finishing touches on it when she heard her boys return. "How did the fruit gathering go?"

"Great!" Jack enthused. "I got three mangos on my spear at once!"

"That's brilliant, Jack!" said Jane, getting up from her stool and giving her son a hug.

Meanwhile Tarzan took the loaded bag of fruit and emptied some of it into the fruit bowl on the table, the rest he left in the bag and stored them away in the corner with the rest of extra foods. Ever since Tarzan had begun to teach Jack how to hunt he and Jane had found themselves with more food than they really needed at once, especially since they didn't have the proper means by which they could preserve their bounty. But usually when the amount of extra fruit began to get overwhelming Tarzan would take the extra food over to the gorillas for them to eat, this was welcomed by them, especially the older members of the family who could no longer safely climb the trees and reach for their food. On these expeditions Jack would usually come along and play with the younger apes. Jack was as fluent in speaking ape as Tarzan was, and even a little better than Jane. Though Jane had become very skilled in speaking ape at this point and was very fluent. Tarzan and Jane had both ensured that when Jack was little that he spent much time among the gorilla colony, they had even left him in the combined care of Kala and Terk a few times, just so they could be on their own for a while. This had made Jane nervous at first, but she tried to remember that Tarzan had been raised by Kala and that nothing bad had ever happened to him.

After the small family had finished her breakfast of fruit and nuts they decided that they would go and visit the gorillas at the waterhole and spend the day swimming and catching up with some old friends. On the way they stopped at the Professors camp to see if he would like to join them, but he was busy with some sort of new scientific experiment and said that maybe he would catch up with them later, if he had time.

It was a hot day; therefore the waterhole was very busy and crowded. As soon as they arrived Jack immediately ran off to go and play with his young gorilla friends while Tarzan and Jane made their way over to Terk and Tantor who they say lazing around in the shade. As they were nearing closer to the two friends Tarzan told Jane to go ahead and that he would meet up with them in a minute, then he left into the trees without so much as an explanation. Jane, though slightly confused, shrugged and continued on.

"Terk, Tantor, how are you?" she greeted, joining the duo in the shade.

"Jane!" Tantor greeted excitedly, "It's so good to see you."

"Yeah," agreed to Terk from her perch on a low hanging branch of the tree they sat under. "Miko has been driving me crazy asking me when Jack is going to come by to play again." Miko was Terk's little one. A few years after Tarzan and Jane had gotten married Terk had finally found herself a mate, Nuro. He's a good ape, and very capable of providing for his family.

"Sorry, Terk," Jane apologized. "Jack has been very persistent the past few days on having Tarzan teach him how to hunt, he's actually getting quite good at it."

"Hey where is Tarzan anyway?" Terk asked, but before Jane could reply there was a short battle cry from above them in the tree and Tarzan dropped down, tackling Terk to the ground. A moment later the two friends were wrestling each other into different holds. Finally after a few minutes Terk surrendered when Tarzan got her into a strong headlock. Jane laughed at the display, here they were grown parents and two still felt the lure of the wrestling matches they so often had when they were young and reckless.

"You know," Tantor reprimanded, "One of these days one of you is going to get hurt and…"

"We can worry about that then," interrupted Terk. "Me and Tarzan here have wrestled since we were little kids and not once has either of us gotten hurt."

"Well, still…" Tantor finished lamely, not knowing what to say as a comeback.

While the four friends continued with their talk Jack and his friends were having a bit of their own rough play at the edge of the water.

"Come on Jack you are going to have to try harder than that if you want to beat me." Miko taunted, pinning Jack down by his shoulders. Jack grunted and brought his feet up to push the young gorilla off of him. The second he stood up though, he found himself being attacked from behind by Kertch, luckily he was able to duck quick enough and avoid being tackled around the neck. This caused for Kertch to fly into Miko and the two immediately began to wrestle with each other. Everything was going fine until Kertch tried to toss Miko off of his back and when he succeeded Miko was accidently sent into the nearby water. This wouldn't seem like much of a problem except for the fact that gorillas can't swim. Miko was seen for only a moment above the surface with his arms flailing before he disappeared into the watery depths. As soon as Jack saw his friend sink under the surface the temporary shock he was in wore off and adrenaline filled his veins. In a single bound Jack took a deep breath of air and dove into the water. With his eyes open Jack saw the black form of his friend sinking deeper into the black depths. Kicking his legs faster, Jack propelled quickly through the water, not taking his eyes off of the sinking form of Miko. After a moment that seemed to last forever, Jack was finally able to grab hold of Miko's furry wrist and pull him towards the surface. Jack kept his eyes focused of the sunlight breaking through the surface of the water, but the extra weight of his friend and the lack of oxygen was making it a lot harder to reach the surface that seemed so near but so far away at the same time. Just as Jack was beginning to think that he was going to black out from lack of oxygen he felt a pair of hands pull him more quickly towards the surface.

Once Jack felt the warm air of the jungle on his face he began to take rapid breaths, filling his lungs with as much oxygen as he could. From close beside him Jack could hear a similar gasping and spluttering as his own. Rolling onto his side, Jack looked over to see Miko beside him coughing up water.

"Jack are you alright?" Jack heard the frantic voice of his mother ask as she dropped to her knees beside him.

Carefully Jane collected her little boy into her lap and hugged him close to her.

"I'm fine Mum," Jack said slightly breathlessly. "How's Miko doing?"

Jane looked over to see Terk lightly patting Miko on the back trying to get the last of the water out of her young ape, but he looked like he'd be alright. "He'll be fine sweetheart."

"How is he?" Jane turned at the familiar voice of Tarzan behind her. He crouched down beside her and Jack, his hair and skin still wet from having jumped in to the water to help the boys. They had been talking when they heard a commotion coming from the edge of the waterhole; they looked just in time to see Jack dive into the water. Quickly they had rushed over to where a frantic Kertch was looking over the edge. They had him quickly explain what had happened and immediately Tarzan had jumped in after them quickly pulling the two out of the water.

"He's fine, a little out of breath, but he's okay."

"Good," She had never heard Tarzan sound so relieved before.

Jack had nuzzled his head against Jane's chest; gently Tarzan put his hand under his son's shin and turned his head so that the young boy was looking at him. "I'm very proud of you son.," Tarzan said. "That was very brave and noble of you."

Jack's eyes lit up at the compliment his father had just given him. To hear his father call him brave was the best thing young Jack could hear from Tarzan, who is also known as Lord of the Jungle and has done countless brave deeds for both the animals and people in the jungle. Jack had heard a number of these stories from his mother, Terk, Tantor, his father himself, and others of the jungle. To every young child their father is their hero, but to Jack, his father really was a hero and he wanted to be just like him.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey readers, I was just wondering if anyone had some ideas they would like to shoot at me for a climax, every idea I can think up always seems to close to one episode or another from _The Legends of Tarzan_ TV series.


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